What has been the number one challenge that has impacted you over the past year?

The past year has been the first year of normality after the pandemic. We returned to our normal daily lives and business. However, our normal has changed. We needed to adopt our new mindset to our ordinary daily business. To find a balance was one of the biggest challenges.

During the pandemic, most of the companies chose to slow down the expansion plans. However, after the pandemic, expansion plans started to be number one priority in the companies. As the legal department, we did our best to support business units in a fast, practical and most result-oriented manner.

Secondly, the role of compliance has gained importance in recent years. Compliance with data privacy regulations, competition law or electronic commerce regulations is a new topic for the legal department. In addition to daily business, we need to provide training, audit mechanisms and clear instructions to the business teams. This has been a huge challenge for us over the years.

Another challenge was the global economic crisis globally. In some cases, the legal department had to find a common ground, acting as a bridge between global teams and local teams.

In your opinion, what areas should in-house lawyers focus on over the next few years to prove value to their organisations in Türkiye?

I believe that in-house lawyers should develop compliance procedures in the company. After the pandemic, the turnover rates of employees increased. Therefore, in-house lawyers should establish an effective compliance program that covers new beginners and updates the old ones in the company on a regular basis.

Another topic for the in-house lawyers is technology. Since technology is a part of our daily lives, we should find a way to integrate our job with technology.

As in-house lawyers, we should also set a high-level communication with business units. We should understand each other in an effective way, and we should create trust. Since the laws regulate daily life, the way of doing daily business will also be affected. At this point, it is very important to establish trust between the legal department and the business unit.

Could you share an example of a time when you came up with an innovation that improved how your legal team works and did not come at a large expense?

In the recent years, the increasing agenda for everyone is sustainability. We need to change our habits of doing business. In order to be sustainable not just in materials but in time and in person, I am trying to change my mindset. With this new approach, our way of doing business started to change.

In some ways, sustainability makes everything difficult, because we need to change the accustomed habit with a new experience. Even though it is harder, sustainability creates meaning in our job, and this motivates the legal team a lot.